


What's in a Name

by CollingwoodGirl, PhryneFicathon



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Backstory, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Ficathon, Found Family, Phryne Ficathon, Phryne Ficathon 4, References to Shakespeare, Resilence, Secrets, true self
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-21 12:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CollingwoodGirl/pseuds/CollingwoodGirl, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhryneFicathon/pseuds/PhryneFicathon
Summary: Phryne Ficathon 2018For the prompt: Jack has a secret.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eara/gifts).



> This prompt veered off the path and I couldn't help but follow it where it led, despite my writing wheels being a bit rusty. I've been thinking a lot about resilience lately and I think it came out in this story. It's certainly not what I was expecting - and probably not what the prompter was expecting either - but for that, dearest prompter, I thank you and hope you enjoy it!  
> I count myself lucky to be with all of you here in the MFMM fandom - the best place in the world to be. Hope to see you at Miss Fisher Con 2019 this coming July! So much love and thanks to those who had kind words, offered to brainstorm or beta, and kicked me in the arse... repeatedly. You know who you are.
> 
> Readers: While none of the Ao3 warnings apply, there are mentions of miscarriage in this story. Nothing graphic but I felt that you should be aware, and hope that you'll trust me enough to take the journey. Comments and constructive criticism are welcome and encouraged.

** Melbourne, 1902 **

“That’s it, Arch,” old Mister Molloy encouraged as the wheelbarrow was steadily filled with soiled straw. The stable, nestled along the winding banks of the Yarra, sheltered horses for the Victoria Police.

“Yessir,” came the soft reply. The sweet smell of clean bedding soon filled the stalls, and the water was changed before the horses were brought back in for feeding. When the pitchfork got too heavy for the boy to wield any longer, he switched to using his hands—pausing only long enough to push the locks of curling blond hair out of his eyes.

Nellie, a stalwart chestnut warmblood, nuzzled the back of the boy’s neck and was rewarded with a peppermint pulled from his pocket. Molloy chuckled; Nellie was well-known among the ranks to be an excellent judge of character.

Managing the stable had become too much for the old man—his bum leg tormenting him at all hours like the very devil—so he never questioned his good fortune when he’d found the lad one frigid morning last July, asleep against a hay bale and clearly in need of a decent meal and some luck of his own.

“Name’s Molloy,” the groom had said when the lad finally woke, and pushed his lunch pail toward the boy—who, he’d reflected, was smart enough to regard it with as much suspicion as longing. “Ted Molloy. An’ I don’t think the Missus is plannin’ on poisonin’ me with ham sandwiches in front of half the constabulary. It’s ‘er stew I worry about.”

Molloy’s lips had curled beneath his moustache as the food was accepted with a prayer of thanks that was awfully well-mannered for an urchin. Either the tactic had served the kid well or he hadn’t been out on the streets long enough for the habit to erode.

“Got a grandson ‘bout yer age, down Adelaide way. My namesake. What about you? You got a name?”

The boy had considered the question. “Archibald.”

“Hmm. I served with an Archibald once. Toughest copper this side of the Dandenongs. Helped take down the Kelly gang and lived t’ tell the tale.”

“You’re police?” the boy had asked—an awe-struck reverence colouring his voice.

“I was… ‘til I found meself breakin’ up a gangfight in Fitzroy.” He’d tugged up the cuff of his trousers just enough to show off the wide, shiny scar that dented his calf. “Can’t barely walk, much less chase crims. But the sergeant put in a good word, and they let me stay on here.” Uncorking a large earthenware jug, Molloy tipped lukewarm tea into two chipped mugs.

They’d sipped their tea in silence, both deep in contemplation of the other.

“Mum ‘n’ da?” the man finally had asked.

“Gone, sir.” His voice had been firm but beneath it lay a tenderness so raw it made the old man wince. His father had passed two summers before. His mother had died the same day as the queen; _embolism_ , he’d heard them say—whatever that was.

“Family, then?” This question had been met with a tightening of features.

“Aunt Annis, mum’s sister. But she’s got her own family and her husband—”

“Can’t afford another mouth to feed,” the man finished for him. Molloy’s wizened eyes had passed over the boy, coming to rest on forearms bearing telltale welt marks. “Did he take it out on you?”

The boy had stuffed his in his pockets and trained his eyes on the ground in front of him. “On her, mostly. It’s why I left. And Mum said if I was ever in trouble, I should find the police.”

“Is that why you came here?”

The boy had shrugged, the first hint of a smile ghosting across his lips. “Guess I prefer the nags.”

Molloy had made his decision. The boy could muck out the stalls and help tend the horses and, for it, he would pay him six pence a week from his own pocket and turn a blind eye when he bedded down in the stables.

“Deal,” the boy had said, and stuck out a grubby hand to shake on it.


	2. Chapter 2

** Melbourne, 1924 **

Jack Robinson’s cottage was cold and solemn when he heaved himself through the door one Tuesday evening in late September. He’d sworn to his wife that he would be home for supper at a reasonable hour. Unfortunately, he could only be a man of his word so long as the job cooperated; this night, it had not. He’d proven to be a superb policeman, making him an oft sought-after resource on the force. The demands of the job had proven a refuge after the war, a mantle after the strike, and he was loathe not to repay the debt he owed even if his unfulfilled promises left his marriage red and raw.

Jack doffed his detective’s coat and hat thinking, not for the first time, it was like a trick he’d seen at the carnival—a disguise that transformed a clown’s pain into something marvelous and eye-popping.

No dinner was laid out on the table. A hand pressed to the stove found it stone cold. “Rosie?” he called.

“Rosie?”

He found her in the smallest room, sitting upon the tiny bed her sister slept on when she visited. She was packing a case full of impossibly small clothes, seemingly unaware of his presence.

“Rosie,” he breathed softly, so as not to startle her.

She looked up—a hollow expression in her eyes and tearstains on her cheeks like dry riverbeds. She was beautiful even in grief, and Jack felt like a cad for finding her so. In the years since he’d returned home, she had shed enough tears to bloom the Nullarbor. She’d wept for the distance the war had put between them, for even when he was in her arms he was not truly there. She’d wept each time the hope of a child had been extinguished, the pain of each loss growing more unbearable than the last. She’d wept for the dream, for what they could have been.

“What’s wrong, love?” The endearment slipped out before he could stop himself, and cringed at the awkwardness of the sound. He wasn’t sure what they were to each other anymore. The spare years of happiness they had shared before he departed for England seemed a lifetime ago—like a story he’d read in a book, like someone else’s life—a time when they made love for the pure joy of it, each carefree and whole, without the burden of fear.

He cleared his throat uncomfortably and knelt down beside the bed, looking for any sign of blood, of trauma—until he remembered they had not been intimate once in the seasons that had passed since the last miscarriage. Rosie met his eyes just then and he felt his stomach sink.

“What’s happened?” he asked. His voice coaxed one last tear to fall and catch on his wife’s lashes before she dropped into the baby clothes she held in her lap. The image of her knitting serenely in front of the fireplace blazoned itself upon Jack’s psyche, and he fought the urge to clasp her hands in his for comfort. He was no longer sure what they were but he knew what they were not. “Tell me… Please.”

Rosie sniffed and her breath caught in her chest. “I saw Doctor Turner this afternoon.”

“And?”

Clapping her hands to her mouth, Rosie could only shake her head. The words… she would not say the words. Could not. _I’m sorry, Mrs. Robinson, but you can never expect to carry a child to term._ She vowed she would not cry another tear for a future that was not hers to have.

Weeks later, when all the doll-sized clothes had been stored away, Jack at last made it home on time as promised. She greeted him with a weak smile and ushered him to the table, where he chewed on his thoughts longer than his supper. The silence was not unusual; when Jack didn’t have his nose in a book, he was contemplating a case. When it was predicated by some darker motive, he was thoughtful enough to take his whisky into his study or retire early to spare her his mood—if he came home at all. But this night was different. The very air felt pregnant with the words he did not say.

He had helped her clear the dishes to the kitchen. He was elbow-deep in suds at the sink when he handed her a freshly cleaned plate and suggested that perhaps there was more than one way to make a family.

The plate slipped from her hands and shattered against the floor.


	3. Chapter 3

** Melbourne, 1902 **

Archibald Jones took his apprenticeship seriously. In the months he’d spent at the stable, he learned anything anyone would teach him about horses or policing. Polite and clever, he’d become well regarded among the mounted constabulary. Too well regarded, as it turned out. Word had spread throughout City Central that Molloy’s new stable boy was some sort of _wunderkind_ , and the Chief Commissioner had decided to see for himself.

“I never expected the Chief to show up unannounced, Arch. You gotta know that! In seven years, I’ve ne’r seen a hair on his head. Now he shows up and says there’s no record of a kid yer age over at Hatch, Match, and Dispatch. I got no choice. I gotta take you in.”

“You promised!” Archie wailed. Tears gathered along his bottom lashes, stubbornly refusing to fall.

Ted Molloy scrubbed his brow with his hands. The truth was, he wasn’t any happier about the turn of events than the kid was. “I promised I’d look the other way. I didn’t promise anyone else would.” He chuffed the boy gently on the shoulder, pleased to find it far more solid than it had been when they’d first met. “Look, yer mum trusted the Victoria Police an’ I ain’t gonna make a liar outta her.”

Archie looked away defiantly. “I’m not going to the Depot. If you bring me there, I’ll run away so you might as well let me go now. You should hear the stories about that place!”

A great grey mare stomped nervously in her pen, and Nellie whinnied in empathy as though she’d understood every word the boy had said. Molloy, on the wrong side of this mutiny, cursed under his breath. “Keep yer trousers on! We ain’t going to Royal Park. Yer a good kid. You should be with a nice family… Go to school... Make yer mum proud. Dunno what you take me fer after all this time.”

“Where are we going then?” Archie demanded, arms crossed over his chest. If he didn’t like the answer, he’d play along and run anyway.

“We’re going t’ see Saint Alma.”

***

Much to Archie’s disappointment, Saint Alma wasn’t _really_ a saint. She wasn’t even Catholic, Molloy explained in hushed tones after he and his charge were directed to wait for her in a clean but rather shabby little office. She’d come by the nickname because she was something of a miracle worker in the Welfare department—competent, compassionate, and possessed of an uncanny ability to place her charges into good homes. And also because, like the saints of Catholic favour, she was tortured.

“For all that she loves them kids,” Molloy told him, “She can’t have any of her own.”

Alma took a deep breath and smoothed her skirts. The first day back was always the hardest. At her age, it would likely be the last time she had to suffer it. The thought was bittersweet, and she instinctively felt for the crisply starched handkerchief she’d tucked into her sleeve when she had dressed that morning. Assured of its presence, she headed to her office where visitors, she was told, already awaited her.

“Early bird gets the worm, Constable Molloy?”

Archie’s head whipped round to catch sight of Saint Alma. In anticipation, his mind had supplied him with images of everything from grotesque faerie tale cronies to Joan of Arc resplendent in her armour—but certainly not picture before him. She wore a somber black dress but her dark blonde hair was piled attractively onto her head in a Gibson Girl knot. She was pretty in a plain sort of way, with kind eyes that wrinkled at the corners in good humour. But she could not hide the dark blue depths that betrayed the sadness she felt, and he liked her—immediately and immensely—for no other reason.

Realizing too late that Mister Molloy had already gotten to his feet in greeting, Archie quickly followed suit.

“Somethin’ like that. Good mornin’ Mrs. Robinson.” Molloy said with a smile. “I hate t’ barge in on you like this but I couldn’t trust it to no one else.”

“Then you’d better sit, and I’ll call for some tea,” she said, measuring the boy with curiosity. Boys his age were often boisterous and loud; it was his stillness that piqued her interest. He was a bonny boy who, she was sure, would grow into his ears eventually. Too clean and well fed to have been in strife for long but his clothing was worn and tattered in places. His eyes were bright and clever, and followed her as she whisked about—supplying them with biscuits she conjured, like magic, from beneath her desk.

“Can he speak?” Alma asked, after the tea had been poured and drunk, the biscuits eaten, and the boy had still not uttered a word.

“’Course he can!” Molloy pitched an elbow into Archie’s ribs, eliciting a sound like a bellows being squeezed. “First time in months I’ve been able to get in a word!”

The remark was met with a withering look from the boy—a look worthy of a man four times his age and ten times as cynical—and Alma Robinson laughed for the first time in weeks. She dotted her eyes with her linen hankie, imbuing it with mirth rather than sorrow.

“Oh!” Mrs. Robinson exclaimed, still smiling—she became quite beautiful when she smiled. “That felt wonderful. Please, won’t you tell me your name?”

Molloy, certain the boy wouldn’t answer, began, “Archibald Jo—"

“Actually,” interrupted a small, steady voice, “It’s John. John Robinson.”

“Is it really?” Alma asked, wonderstruck. John Robinson was probably one of the most common names in all of Australia but for someone who didn’t believe in coincidence, it didn’t feel like less than her very own miracle.

Mister Molloy was also staring at him in disbelief. John shrugged apologetically. “Archibald was my father’s name.”

“And Jones?”

“Mum was Catriona Jones before she married my father. I’m sorry I lied,” he admitted. “I was scared. I didn’t know it was your mate’s name.”

“’Suppose I can’t hold that against you,” Molloy said gruffly. He’d known Archie John had held himself apart for protection but it hurt all the same.

Mrs. Robinson cleared her throat—a feeble attempt at distraction—and pulled a fountain pen from the stand on her desk, ready to begin John’s file. “Mother, Catriona Jones. Father, Archibald Robinson. Constable Molloy mentioned an aunt?”

“Yes, missus,” he replied quietly. “Aunt Annis. But I don’t want to go back there.”

“No,” she assured him. “It’s just for the file. Do you know your birth day?”

With Molloy’s hand at his back for support, John recounted whatever facts he could, and watched with rapt attention as Mrs. Robinson faithfully wrote them all down. Writing did not come as naturally to him as reading did. He had struggled shaping his letters, his long fingers cramping around his pencil. An idea was percolating in the back of his mind. An irresistible idea. And so, suddenly, he was recounting the things he had known and loved, everything he could remember, so she could catch it in spidery threads of rich, black ink—his memories captured to read over and over, never to be lost to him again. The smell of his father’s pipe tobacco. The squeak of the loose floorboard in his room, where he’d hidden his treasures. His mother’s love of puzzles and adventure novels. The trill of her voice when she read to him.

He went on until he had exhausted himself, and, by that time, they were all in tears for the weight of the losses the boy had suffered. Gone was his grown-up veneer, the street-wise mask he donned every day. It had slipped off unnoticed and it seemed, that in the presence of people he trusted, he didn’t mind.

Alma Robinson cleaned young John’s face with her favourite handkerchief and pressed it into his hands along with his file. She had enough information to make an inquiry with the Registry of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, and log an official record of her own with Welfare.

“Well, Mrs. Robinson?” Molloy asked, cutting through the thick veil of emotion that had settled in the office. “Do you have another miracle up your sleeve?”

“Perhaps a miracle closer to home,” Alma replied, her courage mounting with every second. “Have you ever heard of Shakespeare, John?”

“The English bloke?” he replied with some confusion. Was this a trick question? “Mum fancied Robert Louis Stevenson.”

“My husband’s very fond of his work. If he were here right now, he would say, ‘The stars above us govern our conditions.’ Shakespeare wrote that in one of his plays. It means we’re at the mercy of fate.”

“That’s rubbish,” Molloy interjected. “’It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but ourselves.’ He wrote that, too.”

“Maybe it’s both,” John said quietly, weighing the memory file in one hand and Alma Robinson’s handkerchief in the other. “Maybe our destiny is what we choose to do with what the stars give us.”

A tear slipped down Alma’s cheek. “Do you know? I think you’re right.”

***

Over supper that evening, Alma recounted the day’s events to her husband. “What do you think?” she asked hopefully. “Would you like to meet him?”

“I’d be awfully daft not to, wouldn’t I?” he chuckled. He was a good-natured fellow and loved his wife dearly. He hadn’t seen her at such peace in a very long time. “How many kids take to Shakespeare like that?”

She threw her arms about his neck and kissed him soundly. “I promise not to rush into anything. It has to be right for all of us… But, John, I just have this feeling that this is it.”

“You still haven’t told me his name, you know.”

“Oh, _Liebling_ , you won’t believe it!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Royal Park Depot, located in Parkville, was the only receiving center for children committed to State care from around 1880 to 1955. By all accounts, it was dire.
> 
> The Shakespeare references are from Julius Caesar.


	4. Chapter 4

** Melbourne, 1930 **

It had been a difficult case—an illicit dope ring uncovered in the aftermath of gang infighting that had left several men dead—but it had made the station look very good. The praise of his Chief had rung hollow in Jack's ears. One of the victims had been identified as Aidan O’Brien, son of Annis O’Brien, née Jones. Hugh Collins had done the follow-up work at the Registry and made the connection.

_I could inform the family, sir,_ Collins had offered, a swell of feeling for his boss and mentor rising in his chest. The Inspector had adjusted his fedora in a display of discomfit and declined the offer. It was his mother’s sister—he’d do it himself.

It had been over thirty years since Annis had laid eyes on John Robinson but it took not a minute for her to recognise his face, so reminiscent of another. Old, painful memories had hit Jack with the force of a speeding locomotive, and—after his duty was done—he’d returned to his flat instead of the station. The paperwork could wait until morning, the whisky could not.

“You never told me.”

Jack Robinson did not look up from his place in front of the fire, his eyes fixed upon mirror images of his own. Miss Fisher’s voice had startled him but was not altogether unexpected. He felt Phryne’s hand at his shoulder.

“I never told anyone. Alma Robinson was my mother from the time I was nine years old.” Except he _had_ , but not in any conscious sort of way—trace evidence left unwittingly behind.

_Warning her wasn’t easy, looking after a kid who’s been through the ringer._

_Returning the children to Desperate’s husband._

_Toasting to the adults they had become rather than the children they were._

“Surely Rosie must have known.”

Jack shook his head, his thumb stroking the edge of the worn photograph in his fingers. “Rosie lost her mother just before we started courting. It seemed… I don’t know…”

“Insensitive?” Phryne suggested.

“I’d like to believe that,” he sighed; his reasons had been far less noble. Alma Robinson had preserved the memories of his first family and, together, they had forged another—a ring within a ring that had felt impenetrable. Jack had found strength in the circle of his secret. It had seemed akin to betrayal to share it, for he could think of no way to explain without diminishing his families—both birth and found. To everyone who knew him, he was simply Jack Robinson. But the omission had come at a great cost. By the time he’d realised he’d needed his wife to know— _really know_ —him, the lie had become too great to confess. He would not make the same mistake twice.

“She’s very beautiful.”

“She was.”

“The apple didn’t fall far from the tree,” she said fondly. “Tell me about her?”

Jack closed his eyes and smiled—a melancholic turn of his lip. “I remember her poring over her puzzles. The harder the clues, the more she loved them. Enigmas, charades—”

“Square words!” Phryne exclaimed before she could stop herself. As a child, she’d regularly charmed a leftover newspaper from the boy who ran the stall—passing out the pages like gifts when she got home: horse racing finishes and footy scores for her father; gossip pages for her mother; adverts of the latest fashions for Janey. But she’d always kept the puzzles for herself.

Of course she had. Jack grinned at her enthusiasm.

“Well as it turned out, my mother hadn’t only been working the puzzles, she’d been _writing_ them. That’s how she managed to eke out a living for us after my father died. She sold them to the papers under a pseudonym.”

“A man’s name, no doubt,” Phryne huffed sympathetically.

His wistful smile was back. “‘ _What’s in a name?_ ’”

She knelt down beside him and tugged his hand into hers, tracing his palm with a fingertip. They had both known their share of suffering and loss, what it felt like to keep a secret that threatened to tear you apart as much as it held you together, to rush headlong into a firestorm and barely escape with your skin. And each had come out the other side. They knew what it meant to make your own family out of love and redemption—felt the preciousness of it.

Her eyes were soft as she spoke. “ _‘Doff thy name’_ , darling.” He was so much more than that. “The heart line never lies.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Newspapers all over Victoria at the turn of the century generally had a puzzle or word play section. My favourite series of the ones I found is called, _The Riddler_. I like to imagine Jack's fondness and aptitude for solving crime is both nature and nurture.
> 
> The references this time are from Romeo and Juliet. Essentially: what matters is what you are, not what you're called. Phryne gets it.


End file.
